Gator Basketball defense

I decided to make this it’s own thread as it is interesting and thought some posters would want to participate in the discussion. While I discuss Clayton individually some, the same could be said about our perimeter defense of several players:

There is alot of nuance to the Clayton defense question. He was a flat out poor defender last year. Knowing Pitino and how he coaches defense he really emphasizes ball pressure and I think Clayton played way too close to the ball handlers often leading to him getting blown by. My guess is at Iona he was superior athletically to guys and was able to hold up pressuring the ball like that. Unfortunately in the SEC not so much. The key to defense if your going to pressure is you must stay what I call connected. Once the offensive player has his shoulders by you the entire defense breaks down. Someone must come help which leaves to rotations and open 3’s, fouls on bigs and open layups.

In addition, Clayton needs to learn just because the other team is trying to screen you doesn’t mean you have to be screened. The best example of this in college basketball was Shead for Houston. He is soooooo hard to screen and why he was the best perimeter defender in the county last year. With that said this can be it’s own thread cause it’s not just Clayton, it was almost all our perimeter defenders and when you add in the fact we play almost entirely drop coverage you get what we saw. A team that was pretty bad defensively many nights.

Defenders absolutely have to cut off direct access to the basket. When a player uses a screen you have to stay connected fight to get back to a position putting you between the ball and the basket. The doesn’t mean necessarily in front of the ball. Often times let’s say the ball handler gets a screen going right. The defender has to fight over the screen and then stay between the ball and the hoop. So stay even with the ball and not giving an angle to the hoop.

This takes tons and tons of practice and demand from the coaches. We stink at it in general. Coach said the other day we didn’t work nearly as much on defense as we did on offense in practice and it really showed. Have to believe that changes this year. Golden said it was intentional as he wanted to play an exciting brand of hoops but he knows what it takes to start winning games in the tourney.

Also even on my high level travel teams with minimal practice time in comparison to our team, we had several different type of man coverages. Just like in football there are several different man defenses and defensive calls your team can play. I refer to them as having tools in my tool belt. As a coach how I handle ball screens/handoffs is crucial to how good we will be defensively. And every team we play has different strengths.

Here are just some way to defend ball screens/handoffs. You can switch them, fire them which means try and trap off of them, ice them which is similar to drop coverage, hard hedge them, go under the screen and stay with man, go over the screen and stay with man. There are also several ways to play off the ball, for example I have a call where we don’t leave certain 3 point shooters to help no matter what. Another one where we don’t leave strong side corner shooters. I have a call where we get into passing lanes and another I call paint where most off ball defenders have a foot in the paint.

As you can see there is a lot a coach can do based on who they are playing. It’s one reason scouting reports are so important. Also in game, if one is not working you can try another or if the other team is in a rhythm you can change defenses and hopefully change the flow.

I understand our philosophy defensively, I just don’t get why we don’t have more “tools” in our tool belt. Probably the question college coaches ask me the most is how I get my bigs to move their feet so well. It’s because we practice things like firing ball screens which can’t happen without the bigs really moving their feet. And the Gator coaches have so much practice time in comparison.

I haven’t even mentioned Zone yet, but it absolutely should also be a tool. Just to disrupt a team when they have it going. I also haven’t mentioned presses both man and zone. I used to teach my team the old Billy D press, which was basically full court man disguised as zone press because of the initial set up and trapping first catch. But after the initial trap it was man with emphasis on back tips and back steals in passing lanes.

I know this is alot but this is where I think Golden could improve the most and have the biggest impact on our team improving next year. While I am excited we got back to the tourney I thought we could have been even better with our personnel had we been more diverse defensively, more willing to change up coverages, more understanding how important it was to keep certain players like Samuel rested enough that he could give full effort.

By the way I am a Golden fan and think he will just keep getting better as a coach. He is just young. At 50 he will be better than he is today. Just like Billy D improved so will Golden.

 

My bad thanks meant to post in NBN

 

While I get this, I don’t agree with Golden either last year or this year. There is no reason why you can’t run multiple coverages. As I said to the best HS coach in our area the other day every coach should have to be a travel coach with high level players for a short period of time. You learn how much you can put in with less than 10 practices. College coaches have soooo much time with their teams. Even with new rosters you can put in alot. I do have many prospective D1 guys and their learning curve is better than that of HS player, so I know what’s possible. I really so believe with the help of a great assistant or with years of learning Golden will manage that time better.

 

Your right many don’t, but I sure as heck do. Many games are online now and during a tourney you know often who you play next. So you watch those games. When your playing against some of the best players in the country including some of the best shooters you have to know or you’ll get killed.

More importantly the fact our opponents do scout us and our defensive tendencies is all the more reason you better have some tools in your tool belt. There are ways to attack drop coverage as some schools have shown. You better have some counter punches. There is absolutely no reason we haven’t had more counter punches. Like is ask I do think he will get better this way. At least I hope he does.

 

Samuel was a bad defender, and even more so when he was tired. I remember Billy D saying Noah was so special because he played through exhaustion. When he was tried he played even harder. Samuel was so the opposite. When he got tired he just didn’t try. So what already was bad defense by him became horrible.

I would joke all the time with my friends that Clayton and Samuel were great players if you bet Gator overs lol. Both could score individually and both gave up a ton of points defensively. I thought that was another area Golden can improve. We had the depth to give our post players more rest and we should have. Condon plays so hard he also gets tired. Unlike Samuel he still plays hard when he was tired, but often would get out of position, foul etc cause he was exhausted.

 

One thing I should have added to my original post was that we fouled to much. One reason was we played guys that were tired which always leads to fouls. We have to be better conditioned and sub more frequently.

But maybe more importantly we have to learn to wall up and tall up better. Walling is taking away an angle to the basket and talling up is when the offensive player does shoot just raising your arms as high as you can without bringing your arms down.

One of my main teaching points with my team to avoid fouling is that block shots and steals come from help defenders or rotations not from the primary defender on the ball. When someone attacks we should be walling up and talling up making them shoot over us and then letting our rotation guys block shots. Same with steals, we should not be reaching but trying to apply ball pressure so off ball defenders can get into passing lanes and get the steal. All of this takes repetition and lots of practice. Most high school coaches are just bad even though they mean well and most players don’t come in with good defensive habits. It takes time to develop them, but that is what practice is for. It makes tons of sense we didn’t work on our defense much and our defense suffered.

 

I probably play 85% or 90% man, but as I explained that could mean all different types. I also teach my team the Syracuse 2-3 zone. The key to that is when ball goes middle don’t collapse on the ball but instead everyone match up with shooters in your area. It always takes awhile for my guys to get it , but ultimately they do and it’s very effective actually at defending 3’s. We play it very wide and really rely on our 5 to be able to handle matching up man when it does middle. I’m fairness I almost always have a good D1 quality defensive 5.

I have one kinda half court zone press and then I have my Billy D full court stuff that is basically man with forcing inbounder to pass to corner and guy guarding in bounder trapping first pass. After that initial trap it’s pretty much straight up a man. You do need a good defensive 5 to play it well though. Again I just think we have enough practice time to put it all in and be better at it.


The last thing is I don’t play these other defenses often or for really long stretches. Just have them in my tool belt in case I need them.

Golden I hope either hires an assistant to help with this, like Billy D did or learns it himself.

 

Because of the nuance of each defense and the quality of the offensive players in college you can not play good defense playing every kind of defense. I also believe there is no better defense than man because of the versatility overall. However I do think it’s possible to be a really good man team who has a couple other defenses that you are adequate at to change up the flow of the other team if needed. Or if you want to try and create offense from defense having a press you do can help as well. In general though I have never seen a team that is good at man and several different types of zone. Just not enough practice time to be great at everything.

We saw first hand though how other teams used a zone against us to win games or make them closer. We should absolutely be able to do that in small spurts when needed.

 

Condon has the ability to be a good defender. He has a great body in terms of projecting strength and that is huge for post players like him. It’s huge because as he learns to wall up and tall up better, players will have no choice but to try and create space by banging into him and if he doesn’t move he will block shots without even leaving his feet. The potential is there. Haugh with his build and length as well. Both those dudes have the potential to be really good two way players.